1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a method for waking up a sleeping device, as described in the preamble of claim 1, the related waking device as described in the preamble of claim 3 and the related sleeping device as described in the preamble of claim 4.
2. Description of Related Art
Such a method and related devices are already known in the art, e.g. from the European Patent Application with reference EP0977112 A2 with title “METHOD AND APPARATUS FOR CONTROLLING POWER OF A COMPUTER SYSTEM ON A LAN (LOCAL AREA NETWORK)” from the inventor Ryu, Chang-Hyun published at Feb. 2nd, 2000.
Therein, a method for controlling power of a computer system coupled to a communications network, called Local Area Network, using a wake on local area network LAN signal is described. Such a computer system contains a “wake-on-LAN” feature allowing computer systems that are in a sleeping state, called powered-off state, to wake up, called powered up, at receiving of a wake on LAN signal from a service requesting device on a network interface of the computer system. In this method it is only possible to wake up a single personal computer in such a communications network by sending the wake on LAN signal, on a network interface of the sleeping computer system.
This simple technology however fails to enable more refined scenarios where other triggers require the wake-up of several devices at the same time. For instance, present, communications networks such as a multimedia connected home which is a mixture of devices like HiFi & TV-sets possibly are IP aware, multimedia PC's, storage devices, webcams and DSL modems. Most of such consumer electronic products already contain some form of low-power standby mode, sleeping mode and are maintained in a sleeping state if not in use.
However, if a user desires a certain service, consisting of several service features, to be provisioned by several sleeping devices it is only possible to wake up a single device as the present state-of-the art only allows a single computer system to wake up by directing LAN traffic on a network interface of the computer system. Hence, there is no solution available in the present state of the art to wake up at the same time all sleeping devices that are required to provision a certain service consisting of several service features.